Defame1297
311e7cd22c
Six defects, each one a place where two files that an author reads in the same sitting told them different things — or where the trim dropped a rule and nothing noticed because no gate covers prose. **"Use proactively" contradicted itself across the pair.** All three agent templates said to add it where the runtime should delegate unprompted, while `agent-audit`'s `KyberforgeCopilot.ProactivePhrase` rule grades it a hard FAIL in any `*.agent.md` — which is the Copilot half of every project/user pair *and* the vendor-neutral plugin-scope file, since that compiles to a real Copilot agent downstream. Following the template produced a file the repo's own gate rejects. The phrase is now permitted in exactly one place, the Claude Code `.md`, and `references/contract.md` carries the per-file table plus the consequence authors ask about next: a pair whose CC half has it and whose Copilot half does not is correct, because `agent-audit` checks that both halves describe the same job, not that they match word for word. **The output-schema rule contradicted itself inside one file.** `contract.md` said any content only one branch reaches moves to `references/`, and then offered an "Output format template" body pattern with no qualification. Stated once now, so it is not re-litigated: an output schema stays in the body only when every flow produces it and it is roughly 50 words or less. No third option. **Gotchas tiers disagreed with the script.** `validate.sh` emits the entry count through `suggest()` and exits 0, while `skill-author` and `skill-audit` both called more than five entries a FAIL. Whether a given gotcha earns its place is judgment, so the prose moves to the script's tier rather than the reverse. The paraphrase rule stays a FAIL and is explicitly marked as the auditor's call — no script detects it. **The dispatch exemplar was cited at the wrong number.** `apm-workflow`'s body is 421 words; 554 is its whole-file count. Both `contract.md` and `body-discipline.md` cited 554 while describing a body budget, so an author calibrating against the exemplar overshot by ~30% — the exact whole-file/body-only conflation those two sections exist to warn against, reproduced inside the warning. **"Error handling" came back as a required body element.** It was one of four and is the one that gets dropped, and dropping it is not neutral: an agent handed malformed input with no instruction invents a recovery, and a subagent's invented recovery is invisible to its caller until the output is wrong. Restored in `agent-audit`'s rubric as a SUGGESTION, in `agent-author`'s contract and both scope checklists as a required element, and as an `## Errors` section in all three templates. **`skill-author` Step 4 gains the one check the audit misses.** An empty body reports `PASS SKILL.md body word count 0` — a word gate cannot tell "concise" from "absent". Step 4 now hand-checks for a non-empty section, and its commit verification is conditioned on actually being inside a git worktree, which a skill under `~/.claude/skills/` is not. Also here: absolute repo paths removed from `skill-author`'s SKILL.md and contract.md in favour of naming the skill (`zoom-out`'s description is quoted inline instead of pointed at), the boundary-target universe documented to match the resolver, a two-hops-from-SKILL.md limit on reference chains, and `new-agent.sh`'s next-steps output naming the description budget and the deliberate absence of an agent body gate. Refs: ADR-0020
agent-author
Creates and improves agent definition files for Claude Code and GitHub Copilot CLI.
What it does
Scaffolds and fills in agent definition files at plugin/APM, project, or user scope. Project and user scope always generate a Claude Code + Copilot CLI file pair (.md + .agent.md) in one pass. Plugin/APM scope generates a single vendor-neutral .apm/agents/<name>.agent.md file instead — no separate Claude Code / Copilot split, since apm compile has no per-target field integrator (see ADR-0016). Also applies improvement signals — grill output, inline feedback, session context — to existing agent files. Bumps the version after every change: the resolved package's apm.yml at plugin/APM scope (minor for new agents, patch for improvements); project/user scope has no manifest to bump.
Before you start
Have ready: the agent's name (kebab-case), the root directory (plugin root, project root, or ~), a one-sentence purpose, and the triggering condition (when should the runtime delegate to this agent?).
Usage
/agent-author
Manual scaffold (human workflow):
bash scripts/new-agent.sh <agent-name> <root>
# Examples:
bash scripts/new-agent.sh code-reviewer packages/my-package/ # plugin/APM scope if packages/my-package/apm.yml has a type: field
bash scripts/new-agent.sh deploy-assistant .
bash scripts/new-agent.sh security-reviewer ~
Files
| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
SKILL.md |
Skill instructions for agents — gotchas, the create/improve dispatch table, the scope dispatch table, the shared gates, and validation/close |
scripts/new-agent.sh |
Scaffolds agent definition file(s) from templates — a single .apm/agents/<name>.agent.md at plugin/APM scope, or a Claude Code + Copilot CLI pair at project/user scope |
references/create.md |
Create flow: prerequisites, scaffold and scope walk-up, what to fill in, package-root sources.md |
references/improve.md |
Improve flow: signal verification, root-cause grouping, generalizing, delegation over growth, ADR-0020 retrofit |
references/contract.md |
Description and body contract: three-part description shape, 250/400 tiers, delegation rule in place of a body word gate, invocation axis |
references/plugin-scope.md |
Plugin/APM scope field rules for the single vendor-neutral file, plus its pre-audit checklist |
references/project-user-scope.md |
Project/user scope field rules for the Claude Code + Copilot pair, both Copilot formats, plus its pre-audit checklist |
references/deployment-modes.md |
Scope hierarchy and precedence, scoped identifiers, cache isolation, path conventions |
references/scripts.md |
Conventions for new-agent.sh and the templates it copies: contract, template variables, file placement, error messages |
references/sources.md |
Research provenance — sources that informed this skill |
assets/templates/claude-code.md |
Annotated Claude Code agent definition template (project/user scope) |
assets/templates/copilot.agent.md.template |
Annotated Copilot CLI agent definition template (project/user scope) |
assets/templates/apm-agent.md |
Annotated vendor-neutral APM agent definition template (plugin/APM scope) |
tests/new-agent.bats |
(source-only) bats tests for scripts/new-agent.sh |
assets/README.md |
Directory meta-documentation for assets/ |
references/README.md |
Directory meta-documentation for references/ |
scripts/README.md |
Directory meta-documentation for scripts/ |
tests/README.md |
(source-only) bats dependency instructions and run command |
Rows marked (source-only) exist in the authoring source (.apm/skills/agent-author/) but are
not present in an installed plugin: scripts/sync-plugin-content.sh strips
<category>/<name>/tests when it generates the flat mirror, because these are dev-time fixtures no
plugin host needs to discover (ADR-0017). Run them from a repo checkout, not from an install. The
assets/templates/ rows above are unaffected — the exclusion is depth-scoped to
<category>/<name>/tests, so template trees that themselves contain a tests/ directory ship
intact.